Shock jock behind the microphone finds a godly side

James A. FussellKnight Ridder Newspapers

Published Friday, December 06, 2002

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The wary churchgoer approached with a puzzled look. The object of her attention: a man with wavy brown hair and goatee who peers down from highway billboards with a crazy, open-mouthed smart-aleck sneer.

"Randy Miller?" she asked. "What are you doing at this church?"

"I hope," Miller said, "the same thing you're doing."

Was this a hoax? It wouldn't be the first time for Miller. As a radio shock jock, he once tricked people into waiting hours for tickets to a rock concert that didn't exist. Another time, as police tracked a serial killer who was leaving butchered bodies in the Missouri River, he laughingly floated inflatable dolls down the same waterway.

This was the man co-workers at Kansas City's KBEQ-FM, called the antichrist, theisparaging deejay who referred to gay people as "fag-olas."

So what was Randy Miller doing in church?

Expressing his faith.

"My faith comes from the everyday peace I get from being a Christian," he said without a hint of guile. "I've just seen so many things in my life that have happened because of faith. I have to believe that it is of God."

With wife Renee and daughters Charlsey, 14, and Maddy, 9, Miller attends Blue Valley Baptist Church in Kansas City. The Southern Baptist congregation demands a lot. It takes the Bible as the literal word of God. It believes in a physical hell, that Satan is real, and that there is only one way to heaven.

Miller not only goes there, he reads from his study Bible and plays golf with his Sunday school teacher. What's more, he and Renee go out regularly with church friends in a group they call the Supper Eight.

What was it that drove him to his knees?

"I got a huge wake-up call when I was fired from KBEQ earlier this year," he said.

That, he says, plus finally realizing that there are more important things than having the biggest bark in a dog-eat-dog industry. Today he's the host of an AM radio talk show on Kansas City's KCTE-AM. Its slogan: "The next station to fire Randy Miller."

Outside work he has fully reconnected to his faith after letting it lapse for more than a decade.

"Sometimes God's just got to knock you down to get something through your thick head, to say 'Let me show you what's really important.' "

Randy Miller the rowdy radio man and Randy Miller the committed Christian are two different people born of a childhood that was at once terrific and terrible.

Miller grew up poor but happy in Knoxville, Tenn. The family subsisted on food stamps and struggled to pay the rent. The early years with his sisters were filled with good times. There wasn't much money, but there was love and faith.

A clone of his mother, Miller was smart, funny, caring and mischievous -- just as apt to run errands for elderly neighbors as he was to get suspended for organizing a high-school walkout to protest low pay for teachers. His father, Jim, had epilepsy and a bad back and was often out of work.

Through it all Miller drew strength from attending a Southern Baptist church. He still remembers the day he was saved, he said.

He was 12.

An early riser who loved to talk, Miller got a job at a Top 40 radio station at the age of 14.

He'd do a show from 5 to 6 a.m. before school to help bring in money for the family. When radio was offered at his high school, he began broadcasting there, too.

His style quickly endeared him to his classmates. His natural intelligence and work ethic made him a leader. In his last year at his Knoxville High School he was elected both student council president and senior class president.

But his senior year was also marred by tragedy.

Behind in their payments, the Millers got a call one day from an angry creditor. The caller yelled at 13-year-old Toni Miller. He threatened to take away their car and their house. And he called her father horrible names.

Incensed that the man had upset his daughter, the elder Miller got on the phone, then stormed away to confront him.

He took a gun. Later that evening police arrested him for the man's murder.

"You get a huge dose of humility when it's in the newspaper that your dad is accused of murder in the first degree," Miller said. "I was on the radio doing a show on a Top 40 station. I was top dog, senior class president.

"I went from being that to being the son of a guy who was accused of murder." His father spent 20 years in prison before receiving clemency two years ago.

Randy Miller threw himself into his work. His likable personality and outrageous humor quickly established him as a hot commodity. Moving from city to city he signed bigger and better contracts. Although he never stopped believing in God, he said, he did stop going to church.

"I got away from regular church attendance and my walk with the Lord," he said. "There were some years when we certainly didn't practice our faith. We did a lot of things wrong."

Kimberly Ray worked as Miller's sidekick for six years on KBEQ. Fed up with Miller's juvenile antics -- he once had her read the news in a bikini while riding a mechanical bull at a local nightclub -- she walked out in the middle of a show. But while there was friction, she said, she can't help but like Miller.

"I know he loves his wife and his girls dearly, and he is big into his church and a deeply religious man," she said. "He's like that hard candy with the gooey soft inside."

For the last four years he has coached his daughters' softball teams. The family owns six horses, five cats, three dogs and a ferret. In the large, comfortable Miller home, pictures of the family dot the wall.

A copy of "Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul" is in the first-floor bathroom, and a pillow on a rocking chair says: "Any man can be a father. It takes a special man to be a dad."

Renee Miller said Randy slowly became more receptive to resuming his religious life after the birth of their first child.

"Once you have kids you start looking at your life in a different way," she said. "You can't say, 'Do as I say and not as I do.' You know you have to change your life. We wanted to raise them as Christians."

Despite his reputation, Renee said, Randy has always had a Christian heart. She remembers one day at lunch after a local kidnapping when he wrote out a check for $1,000 and left it in a collection can.

During a one-man, 39-hour radio marathon, he raised $11,000 for the Mayor's Christmas Tree Fund. When the daughter of retired Kansas City Royal Fred Patek was injured in a car accident, Miller flew back from a job in Cincinnati to raise money for her on the radio.

"It kind of reminds me of the Wizard of Oz where everybody thought he was so intimidating," Renee said. "And then when you pull the curtain back, there is this sweet person there."

Missouri auditor Claire McCaskill said Miller has always cared about people in need.

"He has a real interest in helping families who have people in prison," she said. "And children."

Because of his radio persona, she said, people have happily stereotyped Miller without ever really knowing him.

"The irony is, he gets a lot of laughs out of stereotyping people, then he suffers because of stereotyping," McCaskill said. "Most of the nice things he has done people don't even know about. That's the true measure of a man -- especially a man in the public eye who has to depend on public opinion for a living."

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"What he produces in the world is his witness, his testament," said Jamie Rich, president of the Lesbian & Gay Community Center of Greater Kansas City.

"And what we see is the hateful speech, the mischaracterization of people and making fun of gays and lesbians for ratings. That is not a Christian testament. That legacy of hate is really going to be hard for him to overcome."

Miller bristles at the criticism.

"Why doesn't the gay community have a sense of humor?" he said. "They say they want to be treated equally, and yet they can't laugh at themselves like other groups can."

Some also believe Miller objectifies women.

"One wonders how men with mothers, wives and daughters can continue to perpetuate the dehumanization of women by objectifying them as merely sex objects and body parts," said Sharon Lockhart, former president of the Johnson/Wyandotte counties chapter of the National Organization for Women.

"This kind of stereotyping interferes with our ability to be accepted as equally productive members of society. One might now ask Randy, 'What would Jesus do?' Maybe he gets it now."

Miller sighed and said people really need to listen more closely.

"My only request to anybody who has a problem with what they think I say on the radio is listen to what I say on the radio. Most of the negative comments I get are from people who have heard from someone else something I supposedly said.

"And the other thing is, if you don't like what I say, call and let me know. Challenge me."

Besides, Miller said, even if someone is offended by something he says, he doesn't single out groups of people.

"He's the most vile human being I have ever dealt with in my life," said Muller, a Chicago morning radio personality who used to work with Miller. "It was constant screaming, yelling, cursing and browbeating. I'd like an apology for the years of torture, and I've yet to hear it. I hope he's changed. But I don't believe it."

Miller responded in soft tones.

"I feel sorry that he feels the way that he does," he said. "And if my issuing an apology to him is what it takes to turn his life around, then I would certainly be willing to do that."

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Thomas Clifton, president of Central Baptist Seminary in Kansas City, Kan., said while people can change, grace and forgiveness come only after hard work is done to make personal redress to people they've wronged.

"There's no cheap grace," he said. "It's not just flipping a switch. Sometimes it takes a lifetime."

Miller agreed.

"If you're a Christian, you're a constant work in progress. It's something I struggle with on a daily basis. Hourly. The only person who can know someone's heart is God. And the only person I'm concerned about assessing my heart is God."

Miller's pastor, Charles McLain, asked: "Is the church only a place for saints, or is it a hospital for sinners? He has chosen to come to a church that is unapologetic in its desire to calling people to live an uncompromised Christian life.

"So I don't need to stand in judgment on him. I'll let God do that."

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The phone call came from his agent in Atlanta earlier this year.

KBEQ was no longer interested. Don't bother coming into work tomorrow.

Miller has been fired seven times. But never did it hurt like this. Before he had always known that the ax was falling. A stunt had gone wrong. Someone filed a lawsuit.

Not this time. After eight years on Kansas City's KBEQ he was simply dropped. The longest run he had on a radio station was over.

At 42 and unemployed he was at a crossroads. His girls were growing up. And after numerous stops -- Atlanta, San Diego, Cincinnati and elsewhere -- he and Renee didn't want to move again.

But unlike past firings, where he could parlay a juicy controversy into a better job, there was no controversy. And there were no new jobs on Kansas City's FM dial.

Presented with few other options, he decided to join a small, new AM station and be a morning talk show host. Today Miller talks to pet psychics and drops double entendres as he laughs with sidekick Dennis Rooney. He sponsors the Randy Miller Belly Flop, where overweight listeners in too-small swimsuits can win their weight in meat.

But he has steadily increased the number of serious, issue-oriented topics. He's done shows on preventing child abuse and helping victims of tragedies. On Sept. 11 he broadcast live from the chambers of the U.S. Senate.

He interviewed the author of "Why I'm Catholic" and debated the author of "Quitting Church Without Quitting God."

But the part of his show that makes him the proudest are his regular visits with the "Cancer Answer Man."

Steve Schultz has colon cancer that has spread to his liver. He's been given six months to live. Miller met Schultz in his Sunday school class, then asked him if he'd like to be on the radio. Every week he comes on the show and discusses his cancer, takes calls and shares his faith.

But Miller wanted to do more for his new friend. He found out that Schultz's dream was to pet stingrays on Grand Cayman island. Determined to make that happen, Miller searched until he found a business to give Schultz the cruise of his dreams in return for periodic plugs on the radio.

Schultz said, "I can only attribute it to God helping him help people the way he does."

And Miller himself is talking about his religion more than at any time in his career.

To his surprise, he said, he is enjoying the change. For the first time in a long time the pressure is off.

Miller scored a 0.7 share in his initial summer Arbitron ratings book. While that's 40 percent better than the show he replaced, it still places him tied for 23rd out of 25 stations in the competitive Kansas City morning drive time market.

"My job is important to me, but it's not the most important," he said. "I'm not as readily identified as the crazy guy on the radio anymore. I used to place a lot bigger importance on ratings and what people in the radio business thought of me and how popular I was."